This study is an attempt to semantically decompose the most popular metaphorical expressions
associated with two particular Web 2.0 practices: social networks and folksonomies. What is a
friend on a social networking Web site like MySpace and StudiVZ? Is it polite to poke strangers
on Facebook and give them fives on hi5? How can we subscribe to RSS feeds if we don't pay
subscription fees? Do we really broadcast ourselves on our YouTube channels ? These and other
similar questions are dealt with from the perspective of the referential and the conceptual
approaches to meaning i.e. what these words stand for (referential extensional approach) and
which concepts they signify (conceptual intensional approach). Thus from the referential point
of view a friend on MySpace is only a hyperlink directing to a profile page of another MySpace
user. But from the intensional point of view a friend is a subscriber to the content generated
by the profile owner.
